The Muslim Brotherhood’s official Twitter account dismissed protests around the country on Tuesday night. Activists and protesters in turn accused Ikhwanweb of bias.
In the first of a series of tweets, Ikhwanweb said “we support peaceful protests and strong opposition; low protester turnout today indicates lack of support among Egyptians unlike #Jan25.” This provoked a number of reactions including “it seems your TV sets are not working,” and “video evidence from Tahrir strongly circumvents your statement; comfortably 300,000 with more coming.”
Activist and Twitter user Omar Kamel said, “they were trying to twist the situation. These were desperate tweets.” He added, “It became clear that there were more people on the ground than when we kicked out Mubarak and they claim that there was low support; it was ridiculous.”
Kamel said the tweets “reminded me of the state media attitude towards the first million man march. They said there were several thousand when there were so many more.”
Ikhwanweb prompted more responses when it said “we respect the opposition right to protest, but it’s clear that political aspirations and ideological differences with Ikhwan is the spirit of Tahrir today.”
One Twitter user replied, “your talk is no different from what Mubarak said on 25 January about the protesters with agendas!”
One hour later Ikhwanweb posted, “when ordinary Egyptians across the nation see pro-Mubarak felols [remnants] protesting in Tahrir along with Islamist rivals, they know this isn’t 25 January.” The reference to pro-Mubarak supporters and the 25 January revolution only served to further incite the wrath of the Twitter community.
One tweeter responded, “we all know it’s not 25 January. It’s 27 November. It’s almost two years later and it’s not anti-Mubarak. It’s anti-dictator.”
Another replied, “aren’t you ashamed?”
Ikhwanweb were unavailable for comment.
